


Abide That River

by Magnanimator



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-01-20 20:05:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1523894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnanimator/pseuds/Magnanimator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War's over. What happens now? These dorks sure don't know!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. White Lies are the Only Kind

There are some times when being a drell isn't the greatest, Feron concludes. 

Well. There are an awful lot of times when being a drell sucks, when you factor in the near-extinction, the likely poverty, the ever-present threat of Kepral's, and the perpetual sense of restlessness and alienation that, according to the word on the street, afflicts his people. 

But none of those are his immediate problem, and he tries not to think about them unless somebody makes him. 

Feron tries cranking his wrench around another few degrees, but finds his knuckles catching against the musty tangles of wire that droop down into the maintenance panel. Not enough room. He tries slipping his grip back, holding the wrench between just two fingers and a thumb, turning. He can't get enough purchase that way and the wrench doesn't budge. 

He's no expert, but he's pretty sure wires aren't supposed to smell musty. Or to smell like anything at all. He sniffs. He blinks. 

Teeth squeak and clack and grind together. Teeth probably aren't white anymore. Probably aren't whole. He's bitten his cheeks raw and bloody. At least. It had better be blood. Mouth shut tighter than tight, eyes shut tighter than black, to red, to something beyond color. Won't ever open them again. He decides. 

Can't keep out the smell. Open wounds ripening in the too-still air. Smell's too sweet. One acrid whiff of antiseptic, too far away. Can't keep out the sound. For so long, he can only hear his own teeth, clattering, grinding. Better than screams, at least. 

Something barges through the clatter, pure and clean and true. Just a little longer, it says. I've come. He refuses to look. Won't ever open them again. 

Feron blinks. He can't have blinked if his eyes were closed. He's dropped his wrench.

He shakes his head and picks it back up. He needs to find better things to remember. Fixing this power-converter will be a good start. 

***

The Shadow Broker sat at her desk, a datapad on her lap. Several dozen more datapads were neatly stacked in front of her, covering both the stainless steel surface and the enameled box containing an elaborate tea-set she was gifted and kept forgetting to set up. Two hundred networked screens wrapped around the room, streaming surveillance, but she could only keep track of twenty or so at a time. Perhaps it would have been better to have as many eyes as a yahg. 

The desk was new. She'd had a desk in her old base. A vast, armored, cyclopean thing, dark and hard and smooth like volcanic cliffs worn over by water. Her new desk was small and lean, all sharp angles and gleaming, reflective surfaces. The old desk always made her feel so tiny and feeble, when she would steer her small blue hands over it to pick up a cup or a fresh data-pad. She hadn't the time to work out how the new one made her feel, but, now that she mentioned it, she noted that it was certainly different. Could it be that it made her feel...too large? She thumbed her data-pad to flick it to the next page of reports, not paying any mind to it or, in truth, the fleeting thought she'd just had. 

The Shadow Broker was pondering something, as she was wont to do during those brief intervals when she looked away from the data-stream. It was a rare occasion, and a special one, and, as was unfortunately common during such occasions, she found herself deeply perplexed. 

***

Feron re-seals the maintenance panel and drops his wrench into a jacket pocket. Then he wanders off in search of the next power-converter station. He knows there are faster, better ways to fix things than by tightening bolts with a primitive wrench, but the pirate boss who used to own this base had been paranoid about electronic security, hadn't allowed his people to keep much gadgetry on hand. No repair-drones, no omni-gel-dispersing nanites, no utility-grade omni-tools in storage. 

And anyway, it suits Feron best if it takes a long time to finish his chores. The rest of his life, for instance, would be great. 

Feron's most-immediate problem is that, being a drell, he is unable to forget that he semi-drunkenly smooched his boss yesterday and is probably gonna get fired on account of it. Possibly beaten up, also. But probably definitely fired. 

He's been bustling around the out-of-the-way corners of the base all day, tidying up, doing maintenance and security checks, staying out of sight and out of mind. He's been unable to avoid crossing paths with some of the mercenary guards, and they have looked at him funny. Definitely getting fired. 

Feron doesn't want to get fired. He isn't entirely sure why, but he figures he should probably put some time into figuring it out. Just as soon as he's finished. Certainly. 

***

A forwarded tip altered the course of a food-relief ship bound for Cyrestiax, steering it away from the port at Ril – where a notably corrupt customs director would have condemned its contents in exchange for a modest payment from a certain crop consortium – and through the safer harbor of Amladaea. 

The Shadow Broker was back at work, hunched over the data-flow, making an adjustment here, sending a message there. 

An unusual alteration to the travel itinerary of a certain human pop-star brought his musical tour through New Patagonia, in exchange for which the Colonial Commissioner of New Patagonia – a big fan – would deny a settlement request that had been filed by a group of refugees regarding a valley on the planet's southern continent. The valley was one of several locations she suspected was home to an old and deadly Cerberus data-vault, and the refugees – seven hundred strong, fleeing the desolation of New Chengdu – included between four and twenty-two former Cerberus personnel of unknown loyalties. They would have to stay put for a while, until someone could be sure. 

She paused only to take periodic sips from the bottle of fortified water she kept under her chair. She'd forgotten what she was pondering earlier, and had no inkling of what had perplexed her so. She suspected, during those fleeting surface thoughts that had time to slip in as she sipped at her water, that whatever it had been would make itself known again as soon as she slowed down. 

An urgent warning reached the personal guard of Nevian Arkanus too late, and the vice-consul of Rheum toppled from his balcony, mandibles split by a sniper's round. An asari diplomat on Irune wired a suspicious amount of funds to an unmarked account. A turian informant on Elysium successfully reached a safehouse concealed beneath a perfumery named “To Kiss at Sundown”, pausing only briefly to overcome his embarrassment. An informant on Melysyre was wounded and taken into custody after a brief shootout with elcor police. 

The Shadow Broker wondered why she'd felt a bit woozy as she read the report from Elysium. She took a sip from her bottle, in case it was dehydration. 

***

Feron has spent his whole work-day finding things to do in the most remote nooks and crannies of the base, and he's about out of ideas. He is, he suspects, increasingly realizing that he can't put things off for much longer. 

He kills a minute sorting his tools back into the correct slots in the toolbox, then checks again. While he hasn't concluded that he can't put things off for much longer, he suspects it more strongly than he did a minute ago. Definitely approaching realization. 

Feron sighs. He might as well go and get fired. 

The guards don't react as he passes them, heading toward the Broker's office. But the guards on this shift are taciturn by nature, so he doesn't read anything into it. He reaches the inner sanctum, keys open the door, steps inside. 

His boss has fallen asleep at her desk again, head resting atop small stack of data-pads, forearms draped over the desk where they must've fallen after a failed effort to support her head. Her tongue might or might not be lolling out onto a report on commodities futures, but he avoids looking closely enough to determine which. He figures that's the kind of thing that would only get him more fired, if he knew. 

Mustering his best expression of stoic dignity, Feron gathers the Shadow Broker up into his arms and steps gingerly away from her desk, carrying her toward her little-used bed. When he gets there, he has to pause. The bed is also mostly-covered in data-pads, and he is obliged to sweep some of them aside to make a spot big enough to lie her down. 

Her face looks tighter and more worried than any sleeping person's should, but her breathing is steady and clear. It sounds content. Pure and clean and true. Somehow, she is just what he needs to hear. Just, it occurs to him, as always. 

Feron suspects that he has figured out the reason why he doesn't want to get fired. 

Also, the reason why he will inevitably get himself fired. 

Feron is a drell. He can't forget the way she went rigid when he kissed her, or the way he'd started acting drunker than he was when he felt her stiffen. She had been mortified, but she'd been slightly less mortified that way. He's sure. 

He can talk to her tomorrow, let her fire him in some more formal manner. They'll both feel better that way. 

He resists the urge to spend one more moment standing there and listening, and he turns to leave. 

*** 

The Shadow Broker woke up as Feron was relocating her, just as she always did. Feron was not as smooth and quiet as he thought he was. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing level, as she always did, for she knew nothing but awkwardness could result if he noticed. 

But something felt different, tonight. 

As he turned to leave, she extended one hand and touched him on the elbow. He stiffened, and he stiffened in the same way that he'd stiffened when she'd kissed him yesterday, when he'd pretended to be inebriated to spare her the embarrassment she had rightly earned by her presumption. She was too tired to stop the words from coming out anyway. 

“I do not regret anything about yesterday,” she said. 

She had not thought anyone could grow stiffer than he already was, but she had been wrong. 

“Erm,” he replied, after a moment. “That is...erm,” 

The moment was not long, and he hurried from the room when it was over. 

The Shadow Broker kicked off her boots and rolled onto her back to stare up at where the ceiling should be, somewhere in the dark. She nudged some data-pads away with her toes. Before she drifted off to sleep, she recalled the question that had been perplexing her. 

How did she keep screwing this up?


	2. For the Pension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still don't know.

It's morning. This planet is too young to have its own clock yet, but Feron knows it's morning because his omni-tool tells him so, chittering and vibrating madly on his wrist. He's wired the alarm function to the base sensors and programmed it to respond to the ambient light-level. Half an hour before sunrise. 

The omni-tool isn't going to shut up until he demonstrates to its satisfaction that he is awake. He isn't going to do that until he manages to answer the series of riddles he's programmed it to ask him every morning. He sighs and starts entering key-words. 

By the time he's figured out the third of the two ways to open the gates of the High Temple at Syld, he figures the last vestiges of sleepiness have fled. He rolls out of his bed and looks for some pants. 

This is an extreme amount of effort to go through just to wake up on time, he knows. It's worth it to make sure that Glyph never, ever has any excuse to come and rouse him. He still hates that drone. 

Pants kicked under the bed. Jacket thrown over his dresser. Spare underclothes under the jacket, in the dresser. Once he has recovered all of these things, Feron holsters his pistol, grabs his satchel and strolls out into the wilds of the new Shadow Broker base.

***

It was morning on Ishtar. Barometric pressure spiked, temperatures climbed, and voices on the distant distant colonial radio network spoke sonorously of the coming rains. 

It was midnight on Ellisport. Six bleary-eyed security officers stood around a pair of limp bodies. A seventh officer arrived, carrying bags full of piping-hot junk food in advance of the reporters and families. Most of the officers ducked into a nearby shed to enjoy the meal, leaving one to do the explaining. He peered glumly into the security feeds. 

It was mid-afternoon on the smaller continent of Yyraea. The local microfauna buzzed contentedly through fresh-tilled loam and above swirling banks of solar collectors. A lone batarian picked her way carefully through the famous myriads and reached under the protective plating of an agricultural tractor, extricating a carefully-wrapped package. The batarian looked up into the security feeds and executed a complicated wink.

It was nearing sundown in the delta country on Mannovai...

***

Feron shares twenty minutes of ceremonial griping with the guards, as he does every morning. 

They're a good crew. Five turians, two humans, two asari, a batarian, a nihikq and another drell. An even dozen to back up the mechs and the automated sentry guns. They're all veterans who had nowhere to go after the wars and couldn't stomach working for the big mercenary crews. Feron found and recruited them via a number of extranet sites. 

Drell don't usually have much to do with the extranet. The priests, Feron suspects, would not approve of his new profession. Which is why he has not written home in ten years or so.  
“Hff. I should have taken that job on Taetrus,” grumps Damos.

“Doing what, bending girders with your snoring?” asks Rastus.

“Shut up,” 

The turian partners clack at one another. Feron slides past them and grabs a cup, then makes another grab for a pot. 

Morning beverages are the hardest thing to reconcile. Everyone seems to have something different1. Feron buys all the different things in freeze-dried bulk whenever he goes shopping out-system. It costs, but it's worth everyone griping less about the rest of the food situation. 

“I don't see why the boss cares so much about what's up on the mountain,” lies Arsenio, who is on mountain-checking duty today. 

“Who knows?” Feron says. “Mountain looked at her funny one day, maybe,” 

Everyone nods sagely. That seems like the sort of thing the boss would notice. The boss gets real sensitive sometimes.

Feron doesn't pay much attention to which kind of heated fluid he pours into his cup. He sort of hopes it isn't any of the dextro stuff the turians drink, but that won't kill him. It's the motion that matters. 

“Well,” he continues, sipping. “I should head up, see Liara,” 

Everyone hushes up and looks serious, which always happens if he uses the boss's real name. Feron finishes his cup of stuff and heads off into the corridors. Doors whir behind him as Damos and Rastus leave to check the perimeter sensors. 

He is still almost certain he's going to get fired. He figures that if he gets to her before she's at work, she can take care of it with minimal interruption. But he doubts he'll manage that without seriously changing his routine. When he keys open the door, she's already seated at her desk, fortified water bottle open and a couple of ration-bar wrappers crumpled in one corner. She's watching video feeds from Ellisport, Yyraea, Mannovai, Kursj, Neris...one hand is taking a lot of notes. The other is scrolling through a stream of numbers. Stock futures, it looks like. Glyph will be buzzing around somewhere.

He sighs, walks up behind her. 

“Listen,” he says. “About the other night...”

She interrupts, raising one hand to stall him. “It is fine, Feron. I completely understand,”  
He can tell she's lying, but in their business they always lie. It's harder to know what someone's lying about. 

The hand she raised brushes absent-mindedly at his forearm. He sees it coming, knows it is supposed to be reassuring, looks upon its approach with a certain dread. She is barely paying attention. Doesn't realize what she's doing when her hands slip around his shoulders, soft and warm even through the gloves. They seem to say so much, he feels the need to reply. 

It's good to be back.

It's good to have you back. 

I know.

Have you been drinking? 

Have you? 

Yes. 

Yes. 

Just wanted a glass or so after I was done with the job. 

Celebration? 

Nerves. 

Ah.

You?

Celebration. 

Oh.

I...

Erm. 

He leans in, pauses just before his lips brush hers, looks her in the face. Her eyes are cast downward, their accustomed glimmer lingering just out of sight like the promise of a waning moon. Is that coquettish? On most people, that would be coquettish. He leans in, tastes lilac and fresh rain behind the wine. She stiffens. She's looking right at him now, eyes trying to meet his. He looks away. Her hands have tightened on his shoulders. 

He closes his eyes.

He opens his eyes. 

The one hand his boss raised has returned to its position on the desk, and she has turned back to her work. 

“I, uh.” he says. “I'm going to go take a holo-call with our informant on Wethrop,” 

***

The Shadow Broker heard Feron's soft footsteps as he walked away. 

It was morning on Ishtar. The distant colonial voices stopped speaking sonorously of the coming rains, and started singing sonorously of the growing season and sex and love. The Shadow Broker plopped her forehead down onto her desk and wasted an entire eleven seconds sitting there, just like that.


	3. Elements of Style

They're in the kind of place Feron knows best. There was a time when he'd have called it the kind of place he liked best, too. 

He shifts to one side to avoid an angry turian, but keeps shouldering through the press. The crowd surges around him, and he can feel the sense of urgency. It's a certain desperation that Feron has always found soothing. He knows what kind of urgency it is. 

There is probably still that time.

A curvy batarian woman tumbles into him and he shoves her away as politely as he figures you can shove a person. Someone else blunders into his back, which pitches him forward. Right back into the same batarian woman. It's an interesting way to get to second base, accident. He smiles as he excuses himself again. There's no time to see whether she notices before he's carried away in the sea. 

He wears his heaviest coat, but he can feel the press even through the thick leather and reinforced plates. There's contact all around. Other shoulders brush against his, toes bump into his ankles, and digits trail briefly along his hips and elbows before twitching away as their owners notice him. They aren't absent-minded. Feron notes a distinct hint of resentment in everything they do. 

He closes his eyes and allows himself a few seconds to enjoy the resentful jostling. Hagalaz was enough. He never wants to feel an indifferent touch again. 

He opens his eyes and looks over his shoulder. His boss is clearly not enjoying herself. 

***

She had never liked crowds. A school friend had once declared – wryly – that she seemed to hate them almost as much as she hated exams. That wasn't fair, she had replied. Crowds had never done anything to her, and neither had exams. She could not hate them, only try to get through them as quickly and painlessly as possible.

“That's just because you don't hate anything,” had been the response. 

She was not that person anymore. Perhaps she should try again to hate them. 

She knew better than to try and speak with Feron. The air was too thick with noise, with vendors shouting and speakers blaring and people using their shrillest voices in an attempt to be heard. The Shadow Broker didn't do shrill. More importantly, she suspected that she did not know how, so she remained silent and did her best to keep up. 

***

Feron slips behind a conveniently-placed elcor and uses the brief respite to check his omni-tool. They're getting close to the rendezvous site. 

The elcor trundles implacably onward. 

***

The problem with hating the crowd was that she didn't know how to go about hating things she didn't understand, and the crowd was certainly something she didn't understand. There was nothing to rouse panic here, and nothing to rouse excitement: so much frantic, restless energy for so little need. It was only a normal day in the market districts of the alien quarter. She saw an asari snap angrily at a pair of passing turians, and thought about asking the woman why she was so unhappy. She couldn't, of course, with it as loud as it was. It would be inappropriate of her, anyway. 

Perhaps that was it. The bustle and clamour made an excellent natural defense. There was no way to engage with anyone without thrusting oneself upon them in an uncomfortable barrage of intimacy. It seemed an odd thing to want, but the size of the crowds always suggested that many people wanted it. If not, then it couldn't exist. Perhaps there was an appeal here that she underestimated. 

***

Feron watches with some amusement as the Shadow Broker makes her way glacially through the crowd. 

She's a prodigious biotic who could level the quarter if she felt like it, but that would be rude. Also, illegal. She's sturdy enough for an asari, but easily lost in a crowd so heavy on turians and batarians. The obvious solution is to barrel through uncompromisingly, putting her trust in charm and anonymity to prevent any altercations. But she refuses, choosing to pick her way painstakingly along. He can't be sure, but he thinks she's managed to avoid bumping into a single person. That's why it's taking them forever to reach the rendezvous. 

The elcor has noticed him by this point, he's sure. The big alien hasn't said or done anything about it, probably because Feron would just be replaced by someone more aggravating if he got rid of him. 

Sometimes the key to crowd-navigation is symbiosis. Feron gets to walk along in the relative calm that the elcor leaves in his wake. In return, Feron's presence makes it hard for gangs of human children to run up and spray paint on the elcor's backside, the way they sometimes do. Feron has always held biology to be the most beautiful of the sciences. 

He knows little about any of them, admittedly. 

He checks his omni-tool again, then looks back up. The Shadow Broker has finally managed to catch up. 

***

A hand reached out from the crowd and clamped around her elbow. She couldn't resist a biotic flare-up as it tugged her aside, though she saw at once that it was only Feron. A nearby batarian couple looked askance at the brief blue glow, but the crowd otherwise continued doing whatever it had been doing. 

They walked along in a narrow pocket of calm, which she saw was created by an elcor. This did nothing to lighten the noise, so she just peered at Feron expectantly. He leaned in, and she saw his frill expand. 

“You're really bad at this,” he said. The sound was just barely able to traverse the space between their bodies without being swept away. 

“Thank you for pointing that out,” she replied, though she was not confident her words would make the journey. Feron didn't seem to register them, but she knew that would be the case whether he heard her or not. 

“Which is why you have me,” the drell continued. It was true enough. She cocked her head and waited to see what else he had to say. 

He leaned in closer, hand still resting on her elbow as the crowd encroached upon the edges of their little domain. His lips drew close to her neck, and she felt the building thrum of his voice well before the words came. Somehow, it's the most privacy they've had together since the...incident, a few days ago. Wherein she had kissed him. 

The necessities of the crowd...had a certain appeal, after all. 

“You should relax,” he said. “Don't fight it so much. Let the crowd carry you along, and we'll get there much faster. 

She turned to fix him with her most practiced glower. If things were quieter, she might have huffed stubbornly. She did things her own way, and he did things his own way, and he knew that this was true of them both. Asking her to give up that kind of control was...impudent. There was no other appropriate word for it. 

Feron only smirked. She attempted to rouse some sort of genuine ire, but failed. Perhaps she wasn't so good at hating things she understood, either. 

The Shadow Broker rolled her eyes and stepped backward into the churning crowd. 

She was carried away from him quickly enough, but had enough time to notice that his smirk didn't fade as he turned away. He was happy here, and so she was glad enough, for now, that she'd gotten them into this mess. It was a good change of pace from making him miserable. She resolved that she should find more ways to help him be happy, though nothing occurred to her at once. 

She managed to avoid another biotic flare a few minutes later when a volus bumped her into a nearby salarian, who bumped into a passing human, who tumbled into a clump of vorcha, who panicked and knocked over a striding geth platform. She checked that everyone involved was alright, then checked her omni-tool. Somehow, she had drawn much closer to her destination. She tossed another glare in the direction where she'd left the drell. 

***

The elcor stops at a noodle shop, so Feron leaves him behind and strikes back out into the crowd. He trusts that he will end up where he's going in some other way. 

It isn't long before a pack of children close in on the now-helpless elcor. 

A human shoulders past him, snorting with ire. Feron figures the human is a lot like the resentful energy of the crowd itself. There is nothing in particular for it to be directed at. It's just the way you act when you go out to the markets. 

Sometimes it's nice to be around people who do things just because they're the things you're supposed to do. He might wish he could be more like them.

His omni-tool pings as he reaches the right building. 

Then again, he might not.


	4. The Field of Honor

Feron the drell has never liked the silence. He's also mostly annoyed by music, talking and most things that make noise. He has always claimed this. People've told him it's an odd combination. 

He has never liked the stillness, either. He figures this is probably considered odd as well, considering that he's generally irked by games and dancing and running. He's has never liked it in the dark, but he turns his head from lights and smiling, and he has it on good authority that this is just plain suspicious. 

He has never liked being alone. 

But he reliably alleges that he doesn't like people very much. 

There's a distinct possibility that he is a deeply weird guy. It all makes sense to him, though. 

Feron scrapes one bootheel across the ground, then looks up. The dust from beneath his feet is the only thing moving against the white sky. 

He is annoyed by talking and music, most of the time. He really is irked by lights and smiling, unless you catch him in a mood. Though these are more frequent than he liked to admit. The thing with lights and music and smiling is that all of these things are inviting, and things that are inviting are untrustworthy. He doesn't trust most things already and doesn't need to make matters worse by seeking out things that deserve it. 

He scrapes his other bootheel across the ground. 

Thing is, he needs movement and tumult. Or thinks he does. Up until the Shadow Broker mess, he's never been away from either for long enough to know for sure. Finding out seems like it's a heavier risk than he likes to take. 

He doesn't want to know where the movement is going or what the tumult is for, just that things are happening and people are going places. If everything and everyone else is moving, he doesn't have to feel like he should be sitting still. 

There's none of that stuff, out on the hot, dry prominence where they're checking for buried sensor relays. At least it's good for his lungs. 

His boss sits nearby, coat smudged with dirt as she watches her omni-tool complete a painstaking decomposition of the ambient electromagnetics. She's completely still and completely quiet, indulging in the long, slow process. She's just about the scariest thing he's ever seen. It's probably a bad thing that she's also the most beautiful. 

Maybe the sky is moving. Feron peers at it, side-eyed. He's never had to think about that before. 

***

The Shadow Broker had never been particularly keen on secrets, or, at the very least, on secret things staying that way. It had occurred to her more than once that her present choice of vocation was, perhaps, unfortunate.

Whatever the case, it felt... good, to be spending a day finding things rather than hiding them, for the first time in a long while. Even if it was just some old data relays. Or even especially if it was just some old data relays. Old data relays were substantially less likely to kill anyone she cared about than most of the things she'd gotten to dig up lately. 

Nearby, Feron fidgeted incessantly. The Shadow Broker kept one eye on him and one eye on her omni-tool as it carried out the scan she'd set up. Since her eyes could not actually track independently, this meant in practice that she surreptitiously kept both eyes on him while trusting the omni-tool to finish roughly when she expected it to do so. He was currently grimacing at something, off in the distance. 

As he fidgeted, he lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe some dust from his coat plating, exposing a wedge of olive midriff. It was good that the scars were still fading, and that he'd been keeping in shape. It meant he was...motivated. Yes. That was certainly the reason it was good. The Shadow Broker looked away. 

“Slow work,” Feron ventured. He had always been bad at grimacing in silence. 

“Yes,” replied the Shadow Broker. Feron resumed his fidgeting, and she looked turned her gaze toward wherever it was that he'd been looking. It was only the sky. 

Belatedly, she recalled that she'd neglected to keep a happy note from her voice when she had replied. More belatedly, she realized that Feron would probably be irked by her chipper mien. Most belatedly, she noted that she shouldn't care. If he got to enjoy the hectic parts of this business, then she should certainly get to enjoy the tedium. It was only fair. 

The drell huffed and began pushing a small rock back and forth between his booted feet. The omni-tool beeped, and the Shadow Broker immediately put in the command-line for the next scan. In the west, the sun of Ishtar tipped down toward the sharp horizon.

“How do you stand it?” asked Feron. 

“Hmm?”

“All the, uh...”

She finished working with the omni-tool and turned her head back toward him. “Solitude?”

“No, just the quiet and the emptiness, and the...yes. The solitude,”

“Well. I have my secrets,”

“Of course. Only appropriate,” he smirked. “And don't you always?”

The Shadow Broker narrowly avoided rolling her eyes. 

***

Feron contemplates what is happening. 

He concludes that he has done it now. He has finally gotten himself killed by reminding the boss of that thing that she hates. Now she's going to flay him alive with her mind, or do that thing where she punches him in the arm and then looks at him sadly, which is worse. Either of these would explain why she's walking toward him. 

Instead, she sits down on the rock adjacent to his and sighs lightly. It's the kind of sigh most people don't get to make often enough. 

Feron attempts to muster a smirk, but he can feel that he doesn't quite succeed. “What, no mind-flaying?”

She ignores him, which is a vital skill she is coming to master. 

“Would you like to know the first secret?” she says, then doesn't wait for an answer. She toes the rock that he'd been kicking and looks off with him toward the horizon. “Here it is: one must find something to think about,”

Feron chuckles. “Hey, I've got plenty I could be thinking about, it's just not anything I need to be thinking about,”

She twitches her head toward him.

“Then perhaps you are doing it wrong,” she says.

This is more true than she knows, Feron thinks. 

“Telling me that was the first secret implies there's another one,” he says. He has always been told that he is a master of distraction. 

“Two of them, actually,” she pauses to adjust something on her omni-tool, then looks back up, still off into the distance. “The next one is a bit...”

“Personal?” he suggests. 

“Embarassing, I suppose I was going to say. I realized it when I was a small child,” she pauses again, and waits a few heartbeats even after he fixes her with his most aggressive eyebrow quirk. “But I never truly feel alone in a place like this,”

He looks around. “Like what?”

“Anywhere, I suppose. Somebody buried these comm relays. Somebody has seen this light through a telescope. Perhaps somebody is thinking about this place right now, even not knowing what is here. I suppose I feel a certain...attachment to all of that,” 

Feron thinks about this, and concludes that it is weird. 

“The third secret?” he asks. 

“Well, the third one is cheating. I don't have to worry about reconciling with the solitude because I am not alone. Because you are here,” 

Feron thinks about this, too. It's maybe possible that he lets the silence go on a bit too long.

“Oh,” he says, after a moment. 

Her head twitches briefly to one side, the way it does when she notes something peculiar and finds it too interesting to hide. 

“Oh,” she says. 

***

They didn't speak for a long moment afterward. The Shadow Broker looked down at her omni-tool and saw the results of the scan, which had been completed and neglected for several minutes now. 

“The relay here is too decayed to yield anything useful,” she injected, into the silence. 

“Yeah,” Feron said. 

“I suppose we should...”

At that moment, her omni-tool beeped, signalling a short-ranged call. She toggled the incoming audio. 

“Hey, boss, I'm getting calls from the team at the secondary site. They need an overflight of some gorge or another, something about pathfinding,” 

That did sound important. The Shadow Broker toggled outgoing audio. “Of course, Nisrak. Feron and I should be fine, here,” 

The shuttle left its wide orbit around their site and set off eastward, chased by a distant thunder. She watched the way the contrail grew as it left the two of them behind, by themselves. 

***

“Damn,” Feron lies. 

***

“Damn, indeed,” the Shadow Broker lied, agreeably.


End file.
